


Between Floors

by winterinthetardis



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2012-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 09:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterinthetardis/pseuds/winterinthetardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Rose experience some technical difficulties.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Floors

The Doctor and Rose were standing in the lift when it suddenly screeched to a halt. 

"Why am I not surprised?" Rose asked, exasperated.

The Doctor glanced at her as a voice came over the lift intercom, requesting that they stay calm and that help was on the way. "What do you mean?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "You have the worst luck with machinery, I swear."

Flabbergasted, the Doctor stared. "What? I do not!"

"Yes, you do." Rose raised her hand, ticking off fingers as she counted. "That time you said we had to go to the biggest carnival in the universe and chose the one cart in the Ferris Wheel that locked us in and we had to wiggle out of it -"

"That wasn't _my_ fault! The heat had caused-“

But Rose plowed on, ignoring his protests. “That time you wanted to take me skiing in that snow planet but you chose the one automated lift that had us stuck in the air for an hour and a half-“

“They should have designed a better floating system-“

“That one time on Docidt where you broke that boat’s engine!“

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, looking decidedly sheepish at that one.

“Well, that time might have been _a bit_ my fault. Though, to be fair, that lever shouldn’t have popped off when I was pulling it.”

“Now we’re stuck in an lift. _That you chose_. Three of them opened at once and you demanded that we go into this one, because it's lift number 314 and ‘pi is always good luck, Rose!’” She mimicked his voice. “I swear, from now on, whatever you pick, we’re going with the one opposite.”

“I’ll have you know-“

“And if you say one word about your superior Time Lord instincts, I will smack you.”

The Doctor pouted, mumbling under his breath.

Rose ignored him.

He huffed, offended.

Rose dutifully continued to ignore him.

He sulked as she leaned against the wall of the lift, seemingly absorbed in inspecting her nails, but he caught the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth. Well, if she was just going to pretend to be mad, he would just have to impress her with his Superior Time Lord Skills until she couldn’t resist smiling at him again. Casually, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. “Maybe, I could just do some adjustments...” He said, trying to display how effortlessly he could fix the situation. He started to pull open the control panel when he heard Rose snort.

“I can’t wait to see this.”

Determined to save at least a bit of his dignity, the Doctor looked into the wiring while saying off-handedly, “If you think about it, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. You were the one demanding that we come back to Astrella Five.”

“Oh no, don’t you give me that! After we spent five days in a prison cell because you couldn’t shut your gob and had to go insulting King Notargim-whatever, the least you could do is replace my favourite pair of jeans that you brutally murdered when we were trying to escape!”

Whipping his head around to stare at her, the Doctor sputtered, “Brut- _brutally murdered_? They’re _jeans_ , Rose! Earth denim is not sentient! I ripped up the bottom of your left trouser leg - I didn’t kill it! Now, if you had gotten your jeans from Sneppa, then maybe you would have had a case, since their denim is connected to a greater controlled being – well, by _denim_ , I mean their blue denim-like fabric that actually has properties closer to that of nylon, but the general idea is the same. Either way, we needed the fabric to tie everything together and –“ He suddenly broke off as he noticed Rose’s smirk. “Rose Tyler, you’re _teasing_ me.”

Her smirk became a tongue-touched smile. “A bit, yeah. But it’s just so _easy_ sometimes.”

He gave her a stern look before returning to the lift panel to hide his own grin. “I will have you know that on some planets, it’s considered illegal to tease your-” He stopped, almost choking on his words.

“My what?” Rose asked, quietly.

“Your...” _Plus One_. Try as he might, the Doctor couldn’t finish. He floundered, trying to find a way to force the words out, but they were stuck. He cleared his throat and looked for an escape route. “Oh, found the problem!” He pulled out a green wire and started to sonic it when an ear-piercing alarm sounded.

“PLEASE REFRAIN FROM TOUCHING THE SYSTEM CONTROLS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” A loud, automated voice came over the intercom again and Rose used the opportunity to snatch the sonic screwdriver away. The alarm abruptly cut off.

“No more jiggery-pokery! No way in hell am I letting you get us banned from the planet with the biggest shopping mall in the universe!”

“But _Roooooose_...” His pout had returned in full force as he rolled her name around his tongue in a way he knew gave Rose shivers. She blushed and he pretended not to notice how lovely she looked with her reddened cheeks, even as she mock-scowled at him.

“You can’t whine your way out of this one, Doctor. We might as well just wait it out.” She leaned against the wall of the lift and slid down, sitting on the floor. She reached out and tugged on his hand, and the Doctor sighed and followed her cue, sitting down next to her and lacing his fingers with hers.

“Well then, Rose Tyler, what do we do until they come rescue us?”

She shrugged and squeezed his hand. “We could...” She paused, biting on her bottom lip. “I dunno, play a game?”

“That’s a great idea! How about Chutes and Ladders? Backgammon? Always did like a good game of monopoly, myself. Though maybe not after that last trip to Stemmok, oh, about, two hundred years ago? The leader looked just like the Monopoly Guy and got a bit offended when I thanked him for the free parking. Threw me in jail, if you can believe it! But that’s a whole different and rather ironic story.” He waved his free hand, as though dismissing the topic altogether, and continued on without missing a beat. “But if you really want, I guess we can still play monopoly. Or we could see who can find the twenty-seventh digit of pi the fastest - it’s three, by the way, so I guess that game’s out. Oh, but what about Candyland? I love Candyland.”

Rose stared at him, wide-eyed, before blinking and shaking her head. “How about a game that doesn’t actually require, you know, _supplies_? I mean, unless you actually do have Candyland hidden away in your coat pockets...” She trailed off, tilting her head at him.

“Good point, I don’t, though that may be a good idea to pack for later. Oh, I know, how about a game of I Spy? Though there’s not much to see here.” He looked around the empty lift, before exclaiming, “Alright, got one. I Spy something that starts with the letter E.”

Rose raised an eyebrow at him before looking around. “E... Er, Elevator?” At the Doctor’s blank stare, she continued. “Elevator door? Electrical panel? Eh... Elephant?”

The Doctor’s stare slowly became an amused grin. “No, Rose. Not an elephant.”

“Then what? I give up.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s clearly the electrically non-conductive wire sheath!”

For a full four-point-seven seconds, Rose was still. Then she pulled her hand from his and brought them both up to cover her face, sighing deeply.

The Doctor blinked, confused at her reaction. “... What? Don’t be a sore loser now, Rose. It’s not my fault you didn’t guess correctly!”

Rose snorted and shook her head. “I’m never playing I Spy with you again.”

They sat in silence for at least another minute before, out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor noticed Rose was gazing at him intently. Turning his head to look at her, he quirked an eyebrow and asked, “What?"

“Do you have a pen?”

“A pen?” The Doctor was confused. “I... _should_.” Reaching into his pockets, he started pulling out their contents, in search of a pen. One rubber ducky, ten paper clips, a handful of pencil shavings, half a banana and honey sandwich, one interbolic radiator, a sailor’s hat (“Funny story, that, I was aiming for the fifth moon of Ainorf, but imagine my surprise when I landed on the Titanic twenty minutes before it was going to hit the ice burg!”), three incredibly stale jelly babies, one diamond earring, a pocket guide to cacogenics, a greying torn-at-the-edges movie theatre ticket, a ball of yarn, and one glove later, the Doctor found what he was looking for. Brandishing it high in the air, he exclaimed, “Here you go, Rose! A pen! Well, by pen, I really mean a Eurulian Page Affector but as long as you keep it away from high heat, it does the same job! But really, it would be a bit more accurate to call it a marker.”

Grabbing the marker from his hand, Rose grinned and sat up on her knees. She put one hand on the floor next to his leg and pulled herself closer to him, practically placing herself in his lap. Slowly, she raised her hand holding the marker to his face.

At the sudden and quite unexpected lapful of Rose, the Doctor gulped. “What-” he broke off, his voice high-pitched. He quickly cleared his throat again, trying to distract himself from the heat he could already feel Rose giving off. “What are you doing?”

“Me?” Rose smirked, letting her tongue poke out from between her teeth. She pulled off the cap of the marker and squirmed slightly to pull her leg over his, properly straddling the Doctor. “Just passing the time, is all. New game idea.”

The Doctor was beet red and shifting slightly beneath her as his eyes darted down to her mouth. He took a small breath through his nose, trying to steady his thoughts, and immediately regretted it as her sweet scent of strawberries and vanilla shampoo filled his senses. He pressed himself more fully against the wall, trying desperately to control his body’s reaction to her, when her words suddenly registered with him. “New game? What new game?”

Rose’s smile grew and she brought the marker closer to his face. “I’m going to play Connect the Dots with your freckles. Hold still.” 

“Connect the-?” Suddenly, he realized what he said and his hand shot out, grabbing Rose’s wrist before the marker could touch his face. “You most certainly are _not_!” He pretended that his voice was more commanding than breathy. He needed to get this under control.

Rose pouted, trying to pull her arm from his iron grip but failing. “Come on! I’m bored and you have so many, Doctor. Let me do this, just this once?” She leaned back, placing herself more fully in his lap as her legs slipped into a more comfortable position.

The Doctor definitely wasn’t staring at her bottom lip at all and most definitely wasn’t imagining what it would taste like. Tearing his eyes away from not-her-bottom-lip, the Doctor focused his attention back to her eyes. “No, absolutely not. You cannot draw on me. I’m not a canvas for you to sketch on. Once we get back to the TARDIS, I’ll give you some paper and you can play artist all you want, but until then, that pen’s going back into my pocket.”

She sighed deeply (the Doctor, of course, was not watching her chest rise and fall). “You’re no fun.” She muttered and re-capped the pen, reaching down and shoving the pen back into his coat pocket.

He shivered at her touch and his eyes fell closed automatically. He was finding it harder and harder ( _Rassilon, stop thinking about getting harder!_ ) to ignore her affect on him.

“Can I pretend, at least?”

“Pre- pretend?”

“Yeah,” she replied softly, bringing her fingers up to his face and sliding them gently across his cheek. “Pretend Connect the Dots.” Her fingertips stroked his skin as she connected one freckle to another. “See? I just drew a tree.”

Her action sent his senses into hyperdrive as she grazed his lip and the Doctor’s arms automatically came up and grasped Rose’s hips, pulling her against him roughly. Any reason as to why he shouldn’t be doing this flew from his mind when he heard her squeak in surprise. _Oh, sod it!_ Before she could say a word, however, the Doctor’s lips crashed into hers. Her mouth opened in a gasp and he took the opportunity to slip his tongue in, savouring the brilliant taste of Rose Tyler. Her fingers found their way into his hair as she started to kiss him back and the Doctor groaned into her mouth as she scraped her fingernails gently against his scalp. Her answering moan thrilled him and as he felt himself begin to harden further, he wrapped his arms around her waist, slipping his fingers underneath the cloth of her shirt to lightly skim her bare skin.

She shifted closer to him and the Doctor froze at her movement, knowing that she had inadvertently settled herself on top of his hardness. Rose had stilled in his lap, and as he pulled back panting, he was worried that she would be disgusted. It was his turn to gasp into her mouth, however, when Rose got over her shock by grinding herself down on him and pulling his lips back to hers.

“REGULAR LIFT FUNCTION SHALL RETURN IN 30 SECONDS. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.”

The loud electronic voice broke them apart, both of them breathing heavily. “Rose...” His voice was low. The Doctor’s fingers slid out from under her shirt regretfully as he continued, “I guess we should get up.” 

Rose, however, didn’t move or even open her eyes yet. “Hold on, just gimme a moment. I’m savouring this.”

A bemused smile broke out on the Doctor’s face. “Savouring this? Savouring what?”

Clenching her eyes shut still, Rose responded, “I don’t want to have to open my eyes and have us never talk about this again, okay?”

“Have us nev-...” The Doctor sputtered. “Rose Tyler, when these lift doors open, I’m marching us back to the TARDIS and having my way with you. You’ll be lucky if we even make it to the bedroom before I jump you. ‘Never talk about this again,’ indeed.”

Her eyes flew open. “You mean, we’re not going to pretend this never happened?”

The Doctor raised both eyebrows, suddenly worried. “Do you want to? If you don’t want this, then just say-” But Rose’s lips pressed against his, effectively cutting off his next words.

“Oh, I want. I want very much.”

Rose shifted off his lap and the Doctor grinned at her, quickly shoving all the objects littered on the lift floor back into his pockets. Standing up, he held a hand out to Rose and helped her to her feet, wrapping his fingers around hers. They stood side by side, in front of the lift doors (the Doctor making sure that his long jacket covered up his front sufficiently), fingers clenched tightly as she bumped her shoulder with his.

As the lift doors slid open, the Doctor and Rose hurried out, smiling at the Mall Operators and shaking off their offers of free meal compensation. As they walked briskly back to the TARDIS, the Doctor said, “You know what this means, right, Rose?”

“Sex in the console room?” 

The Doctor almost tripped over his own feet and Rose burst out laughing. He pouted. “No - well, technically, yes - but that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Then what, Doctor?”

It was his turn to smirk. “It means you can no longer complain about my bad luck with machinery. After all, it was us getting stuck in that lift that started this.”

Rose’s look of dejection had him laughing all the way back to the TARDIS.


End file.
